Time Changes Things
by FanGirl54
Summary: Bellamy was gone for 7 years it's not like he expected everything to be exactly the same when he got back. But he really wasn't expecting his ex-girlfriend, her baby daddy, and their twins. That just kind of throws him for a loop, especially because the last time he saw her they were both on track to get out of this small town, what the hell made her stay?
1. Chapter 1

Does he regret enlisting in the military? No.

Is he bummed that he's been discharged? Also no.

When his plane lands he walks straight out the front door to get a cab. He wanted to surprise Octavia, it's been years since he's seen her. Far too long.

As the cab pulls up in front of their old family house, he suddenly gets nervous.

What's he supposed to say? How's he supposed to explain what happened? What gives him the right to spring this on her?

He doesn't get time to think about those things because the door is opening. Bellamy stands frozen in front of the door, his hand ready to knock.

"Bell?" Octavia speaks with disbelief like he's not really there.

"Hey, kid, miss me?" She tackles him in a hug, making him fall back onto the porch.

"Yes, of course, I did you freak." He laughs, hugging her back.

They get his bags in and sit down in the kitchen, talking about everything, catching up on the past few years.

It all comes to a close when Octavia says, "I'm so happy to see you," before going to bed.

He gives her a soft smile, "I'm happy to see you too, O."

Happy doesn't begin to describe how happy he is, but it's a start.

xxx

They live and grew up in the small town of Walden, South Carolina. Where the population is always less than 3,000 at any given time.

Bellamy's in town for a few days before he starts to remember everything about it.

How small it really is. How rural. How close everyone is. How most people stay their entire lives, never giving a second thought to leaving, let alone actually getting out.

He can hear people whisper and look at him. Like he's the strangest tourist they've ever seen. But he's not visiting, not anymore. He's back and he's here to stay.

After a week and a half, he and Octavia are driving around and he spots it.

"No way... The Griffin diner is still open?"

She looks over to where he's pointing.

"Oh, yeah. Clarke runs it now."

That's a shock to him.

Clarke Griffin was his high school girlfriend. They were the total cliche power couple; star quarterback and head cheerleader. But they both had ambitions and goals, and one of the goals they shared was to get out of this godforsaken town and never come back.

 _Looks like we were both bullshitting each other on that promise_...

They go in for dinner and find it looks still the same as it did when he left.

But things are going to be different. He's known that from the start. He's been gone for over seven years. He doesn't expect things to stay the same for that long.

"You've got to be kidding me, Bellamy Blake back in Walden, I never thought I'd see the day." He looks over to the counter and standing behind it is one of his favorite people in the whole world.

"Raven Reyes, you a lowly waitress now'a'days?"

She smirks, pleased he can still take a joke.

"In this dump? I wouldn't be caught dead. However, one of the perks of being best friends with the owner is I can use the drink machine, coffee maker, and soft serve whenever I please."

"Oh is that right?" He's smirking back.

She shakes her head, a smile still on her face. She comes out from behind the counter to give him hug. It's only after he releases her that he notices the brace. His smile drops. She follows his line of sight and rolls her eyes.

"I'm fine, minor car accident. It's just a precautionary thing."

The three of them take a booth and start talking about her leg, talking about his enlistment, talking about dumb things.

They talk and talk until they're interrupted by a high pitched scream.

"Aunty Raven!"  
"Anty Rae!"

Bellamy looks behind him to find two small, identical children rushing towards their aunt. The boys are small, they both have the same blonde hair and fair skin that he recognizes, one of the boys shares her trait with his piercing blue eyes while the other has flashing grey. They look familiar, but he doesn't want to assume.

"Reyes." Bellamy turns again to find a towering man he'd never met before smiling at Raven and finding her smiling right back.

"Kingsley." She nods before turning back to the two boys. "Your dad treat y'all alright?"

"He took us to the park and the arcade!"

"And for pizza and ice cream!"

"So basically everything I told you not to do, you went and did?" They all turn in surprise to find a blonde woman in black, dirtied combat boots standing at the front door with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.

"Mommy!"  
"Mama!"

They both rush up and hug her legs. She looks around her friends before settling her gaze on Bellamy, losing her smirk and turning it into a bit of a forced smile.

"Bellamy Blake...never thought I'd see the day you came back to this crater rot of a town."

"Clarke," He stutters on her last name, unsure of if she changed it when she got married, "I could say the same thing about you."

"Oh, I never left. You just didn't stick around." The tension fills the air quick, and everyone feels it but the kids.

"Mommy, Daddy wanted to know if he could spend the night tonight." The one with grey eyes asked.

Clarke looked down at her son, at the guy Bellamy knows to be Kingsley/Clarke's baby-daddy, at Bellamy himself, then back to her son.

"I don't see why not, but no staying up late."

It turns into a bit of a family argument, but there's no heat behind any of it. They're all friendly with each other, in a familial way.

Clarke tells Kingsley to take the kids back to the house, she tells him she'll be home around ten and that they can talk when she gets there.

The kids make final rounds for hugs before literally _climbing_ on top of their dad's back, the man walking out of there with no problem.

Once everything calms down Bellamy notices that Raven and Octavia have mysteriously disappeared, leaving him alone with Clarke.

"So..." He starts, unsure of where they stand. He didn't think she was still living here, so he hadn't visited when he came back from his first tour. He hadn't seen her in over seven years, and they didn't have the best goodbye, but it certainly could've been worse.

"So," Her smirk coming back into place before sobering. "You staying this time?"

He nods without thinking. She nods back.

"Polaris is still open, you want to get drinks and catch up?" She offers.

He quirks a brow, "Sure, when?"

"Tonight works for me. After the little monsters pass out."

He gives a soft smile, "Alright. 11?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Ok, all of this started as a one shot and then I got stumped and decided it would make a better story anyway, so here's the next chapter. Don't expect updates to always be this close together, I'm busy as fuck.**

 **Any extended text in italics is a flashback, good? Good.**

* * *

 _Clarke was sitting on a bench at the beach, drunk out of her mind._

 _Raven came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder._

 _"Clarke?"_

 _"He's leafing."_

 _"What?"_

 _All she'd said when she called Raven was that she was drunk at the beach, then she hung up._

 _"Bellamy. He's joining...something. Army? I dunno, forgot."_

 _"Ok, well, he'll be fine, you know that."_

 _"Yeah, I know. But he ges to leave."_

 _"You didn't tell him?"_

 _"Nah, he was so happy."_

 _"And that's why you're here?"_

 _"Noop. I'm here b-be-be-because," She stumbled over her words, "He broke up wif me."_

 _"What?" That shocked Raven. They were Bellamy and Clarke, Clarke and Bellamy, the couple to end all couples. The eternal power couple. The couple that made everyone jealous._

 _"Yup. Doesn't want to hol me back or someting. I dunno, I stop listenin'."_

 _Raven put her arm around her friend's waist and helped her up, pulling the girl towards her car._

 _"How'd you even get here?" The older girl asked, but she didn't get an answer. Her friend was too busy, disentangling herself to throw up into the trash can._

xxx

Clarke thinks about her break up with Bellamy on the way back to her childhood home. She pulls up to the large farmhouse, finding most the lights still on. She heaves a sigh, shutting off her car before going inside.

Walking into the living room she finds Roan sitting in the middle of her sectional with a son asleep on each side of him.

She met him a year after Bellamy left. It wasn't the best relationship she's ever had, but it wasn't the worst.

They were fuckbuddies for a while, she was still hung up on Bellamy leaving and he was willing. Then he wanted to get to know her so they became friends with benefits, it was healthier for her mindset but still not great. That turned into dating and after a year and a half she ended up pregnant.

It remains one of her funniest stories, the day she told him she was pregnant.

xxx

 _She had called him earlier that morning, but now she was panicking. She was going to tell him that she was pregnant. That should make anyone panic._

 _"Clarke?" He called from the front door._

 _"In here!" She yelled from her living room, where she was pacing and chewing on her fingernails._

 _"What's up?" He asked, giving her a quick peck on the lips before looking her over, looking for any signs of physical harm._

 _"Um, I...You...Okay, you need to sit." She pushed him down by his shoulders, he smirked at her._

 _"Okay, now will you tell me why you're panicking?"_

 _"I'm not panicking," She lies defensively._

 _He stands up and grabs her hands, pulling the one away from her mouth._

 _"One more time, but believable."_

 _She lets out a sigh._

 _"Okay, sit."_

 _Roan rolls his eyes, but keeps the smile on his face and sit down again._

 _"Ok, I'm going to start this with me explicitly telling you that no matter what your mother says this isn't for money of any kind-"_

 _"Clarke-"_

 _"Please don't interrupt or I'll never get through this." She proceeds to ramble on for around 15 minutes before he interrupts again._

 _"Clarke, you haven't told me_ anything _, is there an actual point to this?"_

 _That's all it takes for her to break down into tears._

 _He rushes to her, hugging her close to him._

 _"Clarke, I-"_

 _"I'm pregnant."_

 _It makes him freeze._

 _He sits there for a good five minutes before he just gets up and walks out of the house. That makes her sob more than anything._

 _Clarke began to cry, filled with hormones and disappointment._

 _She wasn't crying for more than twenty minutes before he came back in the door, got down on one knee and proposed._

 _It stops her crying, that's for sure._

 _"What the hell are you doing?"_

 _"The right thing."_

 _That makes her laugh._

 _"Why are you laughing?"_

 _She pulls him up._

 _"I'm not marrying you."_

 _"Clarke-" He sounds annoyed._

 _"I'm not getting married because I'm pregnant."_

 _He stays quiet for a minute._

 _"Is it because of the military guy?"_

 _That makes her smile falter, but not disappear._

 _"No. I want to get married because I'm in love with the person, not because I accidentally ended up pregnant."_

 _He sighs, not really believing her, before another thought occurs to him._

 _"You can't take them away." He speaks in a menacing tone._

 _"What?"_

 _"That's my kid, I have rights."_

 _"What the hell are you talking about?! I never said you didn't!"_

 _"You can't take my kid away Clarke! I'll-"_

 _"Oh my god, what the fuck are you talking about!? I never wanted to! Just because I don't want to marry you because you got me pregnant does not mean I'm taking away your parental rights! You're this kid's father, no matter what! You're their dad no matter if we're together or not!"_

xxx

"Hey," He brings her out of her memories.

"Hey. Why are they not in bed?"

"They wanted to stay up late, fell asleep on me at their bedtimes anyway."

"You're the reason why I'm the mean mom."

"Yeah, sure. _That's_ why." He's smiling at her.

She rolls her eyes. "Can you put them in their beds?"

"Of course." He picks both boys up without a problem, carrying them upstairs.

She takes his place. Turning off the tv, leaning back, and closing her eyes.

"So...Blake's back." He starts the conversation she'd dreading.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"How are you?"

She lets out a deep breath, "I don't know."

"You do."

"Not really, no. I feel anxious and excited and mad and let down and everything all at once, it's really quite overwhelming."

"But you're happy he's back." It's not a question.

"I don't know."

"You're going to see him tonight."

"Mostly because I want a drink and-"

"You wanted to see him. Clarke, it's not a crime, we haven't been together for three years. It's okay."

"But it's not. It's been almost eight years, I don't want to be _that_ girl. I don't want to be the girl who's hung up on her high school boyfriend after all these years. I want to be over him."

"That implies that you're not. That you never were."

She sighs. "See, this is why I didn't want to talk about it."

"What? I'm just-"

"You're being you. You're implying that I wasn't fully committed to our relationship or something like that."

"I'm not saying anything like that."

She looks at him, his eyes confirm everything she said.

"I'm going to get a bunch of drinks now, I assume you can watch your kids perfectly fine?"

"You know I can."

"Yeah, I know." She gives him a kiss on the cheek before walking out the front door.

"Have fun."

"I probably won't."


End file.
